Legacy license plates off to slow start

In January, Rick Reiss placed an order for a California "legacy" license plate under a new program authorized by the passage of a law last year.

It's for his 1956 Ford "rat rod hearse" that is all black with white-wall tires and spider webs painted above the front and rear lights.

"My hope is to have a yellow with black characters, 1950s-style plate that would replace my current California white with blue characters vanity plate that reads TOMB 4 U," said Reiss, who lives in Temecula.

He may have to wait a while.

Jessica Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Department of Motor Vehicles in Sacramento, said under California policy the state must receive 7,500 orders for one of three models of plates from the past being offered through the new program before the DMV will place an order for a batch to be made.

And then it will take some time for the plates to actually reach applicants such as Reiss.

"It will take about a year after the 7,500 pre-orders are in place to start issuing the plates," Gonzalez said in an email note. "At least one plate has to reach 7,500 before anything can happen."

The three replica plates being made available are the 1950s-era yellow plate with black letters and numbers that Reiss is looking for, the 1960s black plate with yellow lettering and the 1970s blue plate with yellow lettering.

The legacy plates can be pre-ordered for any model-year passenger vehicle, commercial vehicle, motorcycle or trailer, Gonzalez said.

The cost for an advanced order is $50 for both a regular plate number and a personalized plate. Renewals would run $40.

So far, none of the three replicas authorized by the new law are near the 7,500 threshold for prepaid applications that triggers production.

The most received to date for any particular license-plate model is 2,002 orders for the 1960s version, Gonzalez said. DMV has received 656 applications for the 1950s plate and 389 for the 1970s plate.

One can track the progress at www.dmv.ca.gov/legacyplates/index.htm.

If the DMV really wants to boost the number of advanced orders, the agency ought to send someone out to a classic car show, Reiss said.

"What with all of the classic cars that I saw on (March 9) at the Temecula Rod Run, you would think that there would be a run on these plates," he said. "As an idea, wouldn't it make a lot of sense for the DMV to have a booth at large California car shows ... to promote these vintage-style license plates?

"However, I wouldn't expect the bureaucratic minds at DMV to be able to think outside the box and actually stage something like this."

In any event, the DMV faces a Jan. 1, 2015, deadline to reach 7,500 orders. If not, the program will be canceled and DMV says it will refund application fees.

"We have two years to reach that number," Gonzalez said. "But if we reach it before then we will start manufacturing the plate."